INTRODUCTION
Rain began to fall fast towards the sand and making gentle ripples in the ocean. A teenager around sixteen stood knee deep in the cold water. One would think that she was a statue, because of how still she stood. She didn’t seem to care that the rain had matted her black hair down on her back. Her blue gray eyes seemed to be searching for something. She stood there staring out into the ocean.
“Princess?” a voice came from behind her. The girl didn’t move. It was as if she didn’t even hear the speaker. “Ahem, Princess? Her majesty is looking for you. It’s important. News from your grandfather.” At the sound of ‘grandfather’ the girl spun around to look at the speaker. It was a man, tall with gray hair, and one really fat nose.
“Grandfather? How could she have gotten the news while I was standing here the whole time? Wouldn’t I have seen him, Grimsby?” “Now, Melody.” he said in a hushed tone. “Your grandfather is in the Grand Ball Room requesting that you visit him over the summer. The whole summer.”
“What? But surely Mother isn’t going to allow it. She promised I could spend the summer in Atlantica,” Melody stated. Her mother, Queen Ariel, had promised the year before that come summer, she would send for King Triton, the ruler of the merpeople, and allow Melody to stay with him so that she would be able to learn about the world beneath the sea.
“But, she might. Your Grandfather Charles doesn’t care that his majesty King Triton is supposed to pick you up any day now. He believes that you should stay with him and learn how to be a proper princess-no running around and stuff like that.”
“Well then I’ll have to talk some sense into him now won’t I?” she asked. Melody grabbed the old man’s wrist and dragged him back into the castle, slamming the doors behind him.
Not too long after the door shut, in the direction the girl had been looking, a head with raven black hair stuck out from behind a rock in the water. Slowly along with it came a neck, torso with pearly white sea-shells attached. The body was that of a teenage girl whom was also at the age of sixteen. The girl gazed at something shining on the beach. She sank into the water and swam up to the shore to get a better look. When she got there, she could see clearly the object that had caught her eye. She reached towards the silver tiara that rested on the beach.
“That girl… the ‘princess’ dropped this when she… oh what’s the word? Ran. That’s right. She ran in the castle and dropped her tiara,” the girl reached up to the silver tiara that she wore, took it off, and held the to tiaras in front of her. “They look the same. That human looked like me to. Except…”the girl ran her fingers through her black hair that had been highlighted with sapphire colored streaks. “Our hair is the only difference. What is going on here? And…. That man. He mentioned Grandpa. He said ‘his majesty King Triton is supposed to pick you up any day now’. I wonder…”
Suddenly the castle door swung open and Melody rushed back out. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the girl holding her tiara. Both teens looked at each other until the one in the water dropped one of the tiaras and dove into the ocean. But in the girl’s rush to leave, she forgot to hide her teal tail under the oceans surface. “Melody? Did you get your tiara?” A woman in her late twenties-early thirties walked out of the castle. The ocean’s breeze blew her red hair into her face. “Oh good. You found it. Melody?” she asked upon seeing her daughter’s face. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“Mom, I just saw a mermaid.”
“Yea, so? You’ve seen mermaids before.”
“Not this one. She was different.”
“Oh? How so, darling?”
“Well, for one… she looked exactly like me.” Melody bent down and picked up the tiara on the beach. She was about to put it on, when something caught her eye. “Wait a minute…” Melody studied the engraving on the inside of the tiara. “My tiara’s engraving was on the bottom.”
“What? Let me see.” Ariel took the tiara from her daughter. “This belongs to the Princess Harmony, heiress to the Atlantican throne, Granddaughter of King Triton, and daughter of…” Ariel’s face went pale. The grip on her fingers loosened. The tiara began to fall. Melody caught it before it hit the ground.
She continued where her mother left off. “…Daughter of King Eric and his wife Queen Ariel, youngest daughter of King Triton- currently in human form.”
“Oh no,” was all Ariel could manage.